The importance of being tuned in to your dog

Anyone who knows me and my wife knows that our dogs are really her dogs.  I married into the dog life around 6 years ago.

Especially “her dog” is this little guy — Tarragon.  So a few couple of weeks ago, she was petting him and noticed a little bump on his back.  I think I had felt it too, but I just figured it was hair knot or a pimple or something.  But something told her we should take him to the vet to have it looked at.

The vet felt it and looked at it and thought maybe it was a wart or something, but to be on the safe side, he extracted a little from it and sent it to the lab.  Imagine all of our surprises when it turned out to be a malignant tumor!  So we scheduled surgery for about a week later, and he said they would cut out a good margin around the tumor to make sure they got all the cancer.

Well, the surgery went great.  He did have to wear a “sock” until the stitches were removed, mostly so he wouldn’t try to chew at the stitches.  Kind of like the cone of shame, only it’s the sock of shame.

He couldn’t wait to get that thing off!  But meanwhile, the lab report came in about the tissue they removed and there was plenty of non-cancer space around the tumor.  Success!  We just have to watch for any more bumps that might pop up, but for now he’s cancer free.

He finally got the sock off and his stitches out and the poor guy looks like somebody took a little tiny lawn mower to his back.  But he feels great!

Bottom line — pay attention to the little things about your pets.  I hate to think if I was the only one in charge of this guy.  Who knows how long that tumor would have had to grow.  We caught it nice and early.